Which Cam do you use?

---

Hi folks
I currently tested two cams and now I’m a bit helpless.

1. I took a Wansview W2 which seems easy to be handled, serves a MJPEG stream and thus was easy to config in the Pimatic frontend via the iframe plugin. But the SW to configure the cam itself is the worst piece of SW I saw for a long time Besides it’s worse usability it also does not offer simple things, e .g. the possibility to define a break between sending 2 alarm photos.
2. I then tested a Foscam (FI9900P), which has a super SW with all needed features, but which becomes way too complicated for me to get a video stream in the Pimatic frontend.

So my question to you is: What cams do you use which have a propper SW to configure, with meaningful features and which is easy to put into the Pimatic frontend? - and in the end costs siginificantly less then 100€

Regards Pedder

Good experience with this one:
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B07C75C47B/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

However I’m not using it with pimatic but with a Synology NAS and the App that comes with it.

Im using a few Foscam FI9900P. I connected them to MotionEye for capture storage and easy webpage overview of all the cams. I did a small test and could add a video stream from MotionEye in pimatic via the MJPG plugin. It should also be possible to add a foscam stream.

Hi both, thanks for your replies

@thex,
is the quality of the reolink SW ok? Then I would give them a try
What I received from Wansview was…
Not only the worse translation, also in English, but also the fact, that functionalities were only usable in different frontends (PC Client, WEB IP or WEB P2P) and also the IP connection via WLAN was very unstable while saving the config.

@bertreb,
I already sent back both cams. So I’m not able to give the Foscam a 2nd chance. I was a little bit to quick with this …
However, your tip with motioneye sounds very good. I already spent a few investigations and it seems to be the Switzerland knife for video cams
Planning already 2 cams, I would set up a dedicated RasPi 3B+.
If I understood all the things right, nearly all standard IP video cams/streams can be fetched with motioneye and, what is even better than the Chinese SW, the complete management (alerting, etc…) is done then by motioneye.
… and I already found some interesting hints to connect motioneye directly with home automation solutions, … cool
… and, as you wrote, it can serve the video stream to pimatic

Well, the next project seems to appear …

Thanks again.

Hmm, didn’t use it much, the camera is used just for streaming to the NAS and it does all the movement detection and recording so I just used it to change the password basically. But it looked much better than the one of an old Wansview I had, guess you can find mor in depth reviews on youtube.

I took now a Black Friday offer and will get 2 RLC-410W cams for ~100€.
What I found on Amazon and YouTube about this cam seems to be quiet good. I also installed the SW and it seems to be much better than the Wansview SW.
In addition I also found that the cam is able to stream MJPEG, for Pimatic/iFrame directly.
My 3rd Raspberry is now also on its way and I will see if the cams works fine with Motioneye in addition.
As I wrote, the next project starts

I am using exact the same cams as bertreb, also with MotionEye to get the Stream shown in the frontend. Works perfectly since long time. I bought the cams three years ago. To the beginning I was able to see the picture over the snapshot cgi. After a update this was not possible anymore. Therefore I installed MotionEye.
Last week I was close to buy Nest outdoor cams. But for the while the foscams works so I decide to postpone to buy new HW.

… only to show up with a ‘Happy End’ here
Meanwhile I set up a PI with motioneye and two cams (one since ~1 week now running outside, for the other one I first will have to install a power cable in the garden), which are embedded with iframes in Pimatic.
The reolink cams (RLC-410W) work quite good and stable. Slight management via Pimatic (motion detection on/off) also works well via some shell commands.
Configuration of the motion detection in motioneye was really tricky and took a while, but now I’m happy with it.

… an additional bonus now would be to automatically activate the screen of the indoor wall mounted android tablet if someone is standing in front of the frontdoor. But that seems to become tricky and might be another story

Thanks again for your former hints at that point
Pedder

Sorry for taking this up here again.
I have a problem with the shell commands to switch motion detection on/off. I’m convinced that it already worked but now …!?

I’m using a ShellSwitch with:
on command: wget -q "http://192.168.xxx.xxx:xxxx/1/detection/start"
off command: wget -q “http://192.168.xxx.xxx:xxxx/1/detection/pause”

Reading the status by: http://192.168.xxx.xxx:xxxx/1/detection/status
definitely prompts: ‘Camera 1 Detection status PAUSE’ when off command has been executed.

But motioneye continues to detect and notify by mail!?
Also the respective detection switch in the motioneye webgui stays ‘on’, what I didn’t check earlier.

Someone an idea?

Hi, these seems the Motion api command and correct.
I assume the MotionEye detection is not activated.
Did you try to reboot the rpi?

You’re fully right @bertreb, a propper boot often helps …, mostly at Win systems
I will do this directly and test tomorrow!

Thanks!

… well, my wife and me tested it today after the yesterday’s evening reboot.
My tests have been successful, the other ones not …
However we will continue to test …

What I recognized unsatisfying was, that motioneye didn’t keep the customized file store path after the reboot.
… but I know, this is not the motioneye forum here

just to understand. Are the start, pause, status commands working again?

yes, I would say they do, as my two tests, in the early morning and the early evening, have been successful.
I will do a longer test tomorrow morning over 30 minutes, if detection really stays on pause and doesn’t reactivate itself.

What I’m wondering about: Is it correct, that the respective button in the motioneye gui doesn’t switch to ‘off’ when I send the ‘pause’ command?

I have no clue what happened when my wife tested and motion detection continued…!?
Maybe she didn’t hit the button propperly, however …

Which button in the Gui doesn’t switch to ‘off’ ?

This one:

Ok, that the button for enabling the whole motion detection function.
There buttons for video streaming, text overlay, etc.
I wasn’t aware that a motion command will switch a the MotionEye option.

well I’m not that deep in the technical stuff, but I thought, that if the command would really switch ‘off’ the whole motion detection functionallity, then further detection definitely should not happen.
However, the ‘start/pause’ commands seems to influence other parameters deeper in motioneye …
So I can stop wondering

Thanks for taking that up!

After another check it becomes clear why we saw different results.
After deactivating motion detection by the ‚pause‘ command, it seems to reactivate itself after ~5-10minutes.
Crucial is, that it continues to respond with ‚… Cam is on PAUSE‘ by using the respective http-link to motioneye.
I will check out for this directly in the motioneye forum this evening…

… now motioneye issue #2311 on Github, let‘s see …
https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneyeos/issues/2311